


Just My Type

by a_gay_poster



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Blood Donation, Fluff, GaaLee Fest 2019, Hemophobia, Humor, M/M, References to Homophobic Institutions, References to alcohol use, Trypanophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 22:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: When Gaara finds himself alone at the blood donation appointment he wassupposedto be sharing with his good-for-nothing flake of a brother, there doesn’t seem to be any bright side. Well, that is, until he meets the person who’s going to be taking his blood. Who knew phlebotomy could be so romantic?Written for the GaaLee Summertime of Love Fest 2019, Day 5: High School/College AU.





	Just My Type

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Contreeri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/contreeri) for the title suggestion! (And no thanks to [trustmeimthe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustmeimthe) for her suggestion of calling this fic "Ew, Blood".) 
> 
> Please note that this fic has detailed descriptions of the blood donation procedure including a character's adverse reactions to the draw, so if you are at all phobic of blood, needles, or medical stuff, this is probably not the fic for you. It is a light-hearted story with an edge of humor, though, so it's not especially graphic or gory.

Gaara stands on the top metal step of the bus. It’s long enough that it takes up half the parking spaces outside the student union, painted glaring white and emblazoned with a flapping red banner: **BLOOD DRIVE TODAY!**

The sun beats down on the back of his neck, and sweat drips down his back until his t-shirt sticks to the damp skin above the waistband of his jeans. His stomach grumbles and he licks his dry lips - he stayed up far too late last night studying, overslept his alarm, and skipped breakfast save for a cup of watery black coffee he chugged down while jogging across the quad. He didn’t even have time to grab lunch between his calculus class and his donation appointment. 

He checks his phone one final time to confirm the time and silently curses Kankuro for suckering him into this whole charade. The drama club gets extra funding this semester if they have the largest number of donors for the spring blood drive, and Gaara had been happy to help out his brother as long as he promised to come with him to donate. Of course, Kankuro had texted that morning to say he had a hangover and wouldn’t be able to meet him there. _No alcohol within 24 hours of donation, according to the website. Sorry, bro!_ The broken heart emoji had done little to placate Gaara’s ire. 

He’s not quite sure if he should knock or just wait outside for someone to come fetch him. He checks his phone again, sweaty fingers slipping on his passcode and making the buttons stick. It’s three minutes past his scheduled donation time. He doesn’t want to be late. He knocks on the door hesitantly, stress-sweat starting to bead under his arms. There’s no response. He knocks again, more firmly this time. Still nothing. 

Apparently he has no choice but to sack up. He takes a deep breath, says one more prayer for Kankuro’s misfortune, and opens the door himself. 

The interior of the Bloodmobile is dimly lit with fluorescent lights. It smells stale and sterile inside, like antiseptic and artificial sweetener. The space is warm and stuffy - a fan on an extension cord hums in the front, just behind the partition that separates the driver’s seat from the donation area, but it’s doing little but pushing the humid air around. 

There’s a girl sitting behind a card table just by the entrance, a white vinyl sign hung over the front declaring it the check-in desk. She doesn’t look up until he shifts uncomfortably in front of her, too occupied with scrolling through her phone. 

“Hey,” she says, giving him a perfect customer-service smile. “You have a donation appointment?” 

Gaara nods mutely and nervously adjusts the strap of his messenger bag. It feels suddenly much heavier than it had that morning. 

“Great!” She gives him that false-cheer grin again and holds out her hand. “Let me see your ID and I’ll get you checked in.”

Gaara fumbles with the clear plastic cover that holds his driver’s license in his wallet for what seems an inappropriately long time. He chuckles nervously. “Always gets stuck,” he excuses. 

“Yeah?” the girl behind the desk drawls disinterestedly. Her hand is still outstretched, waiting.

Finally, he frees the troublesome rectangle and passes it to her. She scrutinizes it against her list, then against his face. Gaara tries to imitate the expression on his (awkward, terrible, high school era) ID photo, just in case she thinks he might be attempting to … donate blood under false pretenses, or something. 

“Undercut looks way better on you than the whole … shaggy-looking thing you have going on in your photo,” she says after a moment.

Gaara grimaces. “I was between haircuts.”

“... Right. So, are you donating on behalf of a club today?”

“Drama club.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t seem like the theatrical type.”

“I’m not.” Gaara’s throat feels dry with nerves. He licks at his dry lips again; the corners are starting to crack. “My brother- “

“‘Kay,” she interrupts him. She passes him a pamphlet and clipboard, then removes one of the many pens stuck in the twin buns on either side of her head and points it at him. “Go sit down over there- “ She gestures to a tidy row of cubicles against the far side of the bus. “- read through this, sign here, here, and here stating you consent to the donation. A staff member will be with you in just a minute. Any questions?” She tilts her head to the side in an attempt to look welcoming, but her expression clearly reads that any questions he may have would be best kept to himself. 

“Nope,” Gaara replies, clutching the clipboard nervously to his chest. His sweaty fingers leave awful little wet marks on the paper. “Thanks.”

“Thank _you_ for choosing to give the gift of life today!” she recites mechanically. 

Gaara sits heavily in the hard-backed plastic chair in the cubicle furthest from the registration desk and immediately begins jiggling his leg. Sweat starts to bead up along his hairline. The words on the pamphlet swim in front of him, but he signs in the indicated areas anyway, then goes right back to bouncing his leg. The chair has one leg that’s slightly shorter than the others, and it rattles rhythmically with his motions. 

Someone knocks on the side of the cubicle and a shadow falls over Gaara’s jittering limbs. Gaara looks up into the face of the man peering over the side of the partition. He has the brightest smile Gaara has ever seen. His biceps bulge from under the sleeves of his white scrub top, his skin burnished gold like the summer sun kissed him and wouldn’t let him go.

Gaara’s pounding heart skips a whole series of beats. 

“Hello!” the man greets him, striding around the side of the cubicle and sitting down in the other chair in the narrow space. Beneath the thin fabric of his scrub pants, Gaara can make out the cut of muscles he doesn’t know the names of. “My name is Lee. I’m going to be helping you today!” Lee holds out his hand to shake.

“I know,” Gaara says flatly. 

There’s a brief, silent pause where Lee’s outstretched hand falls back to his knee. His bushy eyebrows wrinkle in confusion.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Have you donated before? I’m usually pretty good with names and faces, and I’m sure I’d remember if I saw you- “

“No, I- “ Gaara interrupts him with an awkward flap of his hand towards the nametag dangling from Lee’s breast pocket. 

Lee looks down at it, then back up at Gaara with a grin cracking back across his face. “Oh, you’re very observant!” He laughs good naturedly. “Smart. This should go quickly, then.” He pulls a pen from his pocket and clicks the end of it, the sound surprisingly loud. He takes the clipboard from Gaara’s numb fingers and scans the papers with practiced efficiency. “Okay, we’re going to start with a brief health history, to confirm you’re eligible to donate,” he recites, as if reading off a script. “Some of the questions might be a little uncomfortable, but we have to ask everyone the exact same things. If it turns out you’re not able to donate today, you may still be able to donate in the future. Any questions?” 

The smile he gives Gaara is open and genuine. Gaara shakes his head in response. 

“Great! Let’s get started. Are you feeling healthy and well today?” 

Gaara blinks a bit more of the crusty sleep from his eyes. His throat is still parched, and his head is clogged with exhaustion. His back aches from hunching over his laptop screen and his eyes still feel raw from staring too long at the backlight. He’s starting to smell the acrid scent of anxiety sweat cutting through his deodorant, even though he reapplied it in the bathroom after class. 

“Yeah, feeling great.”

“Excellent!” Lee must have the best dentist in the world, his smile is so straight and white. Gaara spends a moment idly considering if maybe he moonlights as a toothbrush model when he isn’t sucking the blood out of college students. “On any medications today?”

“Just for my anxiety,” Gaara says, fussing in his bag for the prescription bottle and passing it over. He feels awkward admitting to it when he’s staring down, essentially, the physical representation of human perfection. Lee has probably never had so much as a cold in his entire life, and if he did, he probably just flexed one of those biceps and the germs got scared away. 

Lee quickly checks the medication name against a thick manual and hands it back. “That won’t be a problem,” he assures Gaara. In an odd way, it does make him feel a little better. 

“Any alcohol in the last twenty-four hours?” 

Gaara thinks to his good-for-nothing brother, who probably still hasn’t rolled off the couch since he sent Gaara that pity text at 10 AM. 

“None.” He may be medicated, but at least he hasn’t rendered himself ineligible from donation by drinking himself into a stupor, unlike some miscreants he can think of. 

The next few questions are simple enough - a ‘no’ to each - until they get about halfway down the list. 

“Any sexual contact with another male in the past 12 months?” 

Gaara pauses for a painfully long moment. 

“Nnnn-no.” 

Lee’s eyes flick up to look at him, eyebrows furrowed at the odd response. Gaara is suddenly acutely aware of the rainbow bracelet on his left wrist and the pride badges studding his messenger bag. He clears his dry throat and wills his voice not to crack.

“I just haven’t found the right guy yet, I guess,” he offers with a weak smile. 

Lee grins back at him warmly and clicks his pen a couple more times. “Okay, moving on!”

The remainder of the questionnaire passes with no further pitfalls, and Lee stands to reach for a bottle of sanitizer on the back of the cubicle’s desk. 

“Now we’re going to do a brief physical to make sure you’re healthy enough to donate today,” he explains. The alcohol stench of the sanitizer Lee rubs on his hands hits Gaara like a punch. When he snaps on his nylon gloves, a puff of scented powder meets the air; Gaara swallows back a gag at the smell. 

Lee wraps a blood pressure cuff around Gaara’s upper arm, adjusting his rolled sleeve with care. Lee’s hands are huge, big enough that one of them could easily encircle Gaara’s somewhat underdeveloped bicep on its own. He clips a piece of plastic to Gaara’s outstretched finger and presses a button. 

“You might feel a little discomfort,” Lee warns. The machine whirrs and the cuff tightens until it’s fairly strangling Gaara’s arm. The machine beeps, the cuff deflates, and Lee frees him from its vise grip.

“94 over 60 - a little low, but you should still be okay to donate.” Lee pauses, and his lips purse. “Are you feeling lightheaded at all?”

Gaara shakes his head, and ignores the gentle swimming feeling behind his eyes. “It’s always low like that.”

Lee glances down at the oximeter. “Your pulse is kind of high, too. Are you nervous?” 

“A little,” Gaara admits. 

“We’re almost done.” Lee smiles reassuringly, and Gaara does his best to smile back. “I’m going to take your temperature now. Can you please open your mouth?”

Gaara complies, and tries his best not to think about that large hand putting something so suggestively shaped in his open mouth. He hopes the blood rushing to his face won’t affect the reading. Lee’s fingers are so close to his lips.

“Please hold that under your tongue.”

Gaara’s hand fumbles when Lee draws away. Their hands jar against one another’s and Gaara almost lets the thermometer fall to the floor before he’s able to steady it. Lee watches him, smiling softly, until the thermometer beeps. Then those hands are back, close to Gaara’s skin again, pulling the plastic from his mouth. 

“Your temperature is normal,” Lee says, flicking the thermometer’s disposable plastic cap into the trash. He retrieves a tiny plastic cylinder and holds it out. “Last, I’ll just need to check your hemoglobin. Hold out your finger, please?” 

Gaara holds his hand out, and Lee squeezes his middle finger tightly. 

“Now you’re going to feel a small prick.” 

There’s a soft click. Lee pulls the cylinder away, and Gaara watches as blood bubbles on the end of his finger. The sight makes him feel oddly dizzy, his finger growing and shrinking in his vision. Suddenly, his face feels ice-cold and his finger pulses with heat. 

Lee sucks up the blood in a tiny ampule and feeds it into a machine. After a moment, he turns to Gaara and smiles again. 

“Your hemoglobin looks good! Give me just a minute to check that we have an open bed, then we’ll get you back to donate.” Lee stands, and his chair screeches across the bus floor. Gaara can’t stop looking at his finger even after Lee gives him a bit of gauze to wipe away the blood. His ears start ringing. 

He’s still watching the slowly growing spot of red on the cotton ball when Lee returns, after what feels like a very long time. The image of it sways in his vision, and he startles when Lee claps him on the shoulder. 

“It’s okay,” Lee says with that winning smile. “Most people are nervous the first time they donate. I’ll be right there with you the whole time, and if you start to not feel well, you can just let me know.”

Gaara nods mutely, and follows Lee back to the donation area on wobbly legs, his bag a lead weight on his shoulder. 

There are four donation beds total in the back of the bus, and Lee has Gaara sit on one, the plastic tacky where it touches his hands. In the bed next to Gaara is a bored-looking girl playing some inane, chirping game on her cellphone. Next to her, on a tilting machine, is a nearly full bag of blood. Gaara’s eyes are drawn immediately to the place where the needle breaks the thin skin of her inner arm, the tube full of dark red blood spiraling. Over the hum of the machine, he can hear the blood sloshing back and forth in the bag. He blinks hard and feels his head listing to one side. 

“Please lay back,” Lee prompts him, with a warm hand on his shoulder. He sanitizes Gaara’s inner arm in quick swipes of some acerbic-smelling chemical that clings in his nose and stings metallic in his sinuses. 

There’s the sound of plastic ripping, and Gaara looks over to see Lee retrieving a fine-bore needle from its package. He’s drawn a stool up next to where Gaara’s lying, and Gaara can see the shape of his thigh muscles bulging where he rests one hand on his leg. He watches the needle warily, and tries not to be caught staring. Dimly, he’s aware the Lee is still talking to him, but he’s hardly listening, just watching the light reflecting off the implement in Lee’s hand. 

“Gaara? Gaara? Hey, are you with me?” Lee’s gloved hand waves in front of his face, trailing the chemical stink of nylon.

“Sorry,” Gaara mumbles. “I’m just a little scared of needles.”

“That’s okay,” Lee says, and moves the needle out of Gaara’s line of sight. “Lots of our donors are scared of needles. Why don’t you look at that nice word-search puzzle over there on the wall, and try not to think about it?” Lee points to the back wall of the donation area, which is studded with a number of brightly colored posters covered in riddles and word games. “You’re just going to feel a little sting, and then it will all be over in about five or ten minutes.”

Gaara tries to scan the word search, but the letters wobble and jitter in front of his eyes. After a certain point, they hardly even resemble human language. There’s a prickling on his arm and his head whips around to the needle slipping into his vein.

“Hey, I told you not to look!” Lee thrusts his free hand directly in Gaara’s eyeline, obscuring his view of the needle. Gaara studies the span of his broad fingers a bit absently. “I’m going to put some gauze over this so you don’t feel tempted to stare, okay?” Lee offers gently. 

Gaara nods, but the needle wiggles in his arm when Lee moves to gather the supplies, and his stomach does a slow somersault. 

“You’re still looking a little pale,” Lee notes, once he’s secured the gauze to Gaara’s arm with white tape. “Why don’t we chat a bit?” 

“Mm-hmm,” Gaara replies, which is hardly an appropriate answer at all. Slowly, he drags his eyes from the bandage, up Lee’s muscular arms to his face. It’s a nice view. 

“So, you’re a student?”

“Yeah.” Gaara blinks hard. As long as he focuses on Lee’s face and doesn’t look at the way the bag next to him is slowly filling with dark red blood that is literally _currently coming from inside him_, he feels okay. 

“What are you studying?” Lee has really nice eyebrows, Gaara notes, his vision fixating on one, then another. He wonders if they grow thick like that naturally or if he pencils them in. Gaara’s a bit envious; his own eyebrows are so thin and pale it hardly looks like he has any at all. 

“Agriculture and horticulture.” Gaara’s shoulders tense a little, defensively. When he told his father that he had declared a major, his response had been: ‘With that degree and three dollars, you can buy yourself a cup of coffee.’ 

“That is fascinating!” Lee says, in a tone that conveys that he really does think it’s fascinating, rather than ‘kind of weird’, which is most people’s reaction to Gaara’s double major. “What do you hope to do with that?” This, too, comes across as a genuine inquiry into Gaara’s future plans, rather than an underhanded remark. 

Gaara hums. The wet sound of the blood bag shaking as it fills has faded into a comfortable buzz of background noise, and the warmth of the bus has grown comforting, especially given how chilly he’s starting to feel. 

“Probably research,” he says, though his tongue feels a bit clumsy. “Trying to figure out how to make more sustainable food, crops with better yields, improve natural biodiversity - that sort of thing.” 

“That sounds amazing! I am always so impressed with people who use their smarts to make the world a better place.” Lee’s eyes are sparkling. His eyelashes are remarkably long, and they fall prettily across his high cheekbones when he blinks. 

“Isn’t that pretty much what being a nurse is?” Gaara asks, to distract himself from the impulse to reach out and rub his thumb along the side of Lee’s face so he can map the topography of those handsome features for himself. 

“Oh,” Lee’s plush lips draw down in a pout. “I’m not a nurse yet - just a phlebotomist. I’m in night school for it, though.” 

Gaara’s skin prickles, feeling awkward over his presumptuousness.

“So are all phlebotomists as ripped as you are?” 

Well, that certainly didn’t help him feel any _less_ uncomfortable, but maybe if he dies of embarrassment right now he can skip the rest of this encounter and just enjoy his punishment in hell, where they’ll no doubt replay him saying that last sentence on a projector screen for all of eternity. 

Lee’s only reaction is to laugh. He probably gets that type of comment a lot, looking the way he does; he must be used to it by now. Not that it’s an excuse. Gaara licks his dry lips for what feels like the thousandth time. He wishes he’d brought chapstick. 

“Well,” Lee says, still chuckling under his breath, “there is a lot of heavy equipment to move around with the mobile blood donations … but working out is more of a pastime than an occupational requirement. It’s a great stress reliever!” 

Gaara thinks about the last time he went on a treadmill, after Temari told him he was starting to look ‘weedy and anemic’. He still has a scar on his forehead from where his head collided with the running belt. 

“It sounds miserable.”

Just as Lee opens his mouth to retort, the other phlebotomist - a tall, dark-skinned woman with her pink hair in microbraids, whose shoulder span utterly defies Lee’s claims that being buff isn’t a necessity for a phlebotomy job - walks past with a bag of blood in her hands. The plastic sags and pouches over her fingers, heavy with its contents. Gaara feels all the temperature draining from his face and looks away quickly. 

“So, uh, there’s no nurses here?” he asks, desperate to hang on to the conversation so he can stop thinking about how warm that bag must have felt, fresh from someone else’s veins. 

“Oh, no, our supervisor is a nurse,” Lee reassures him. “She’s in the back, just in case someone has an adverse reaction to their donation.”

“How often does that happen?” Gaara asks weakly. 

“Not very often- “ Lee frowns and his warm hand comes to rest on Gaara’s suddenly clammy upper arm. The needle jiggles in his arm and his stomach lurches. “- hey, don’t worry. I’m right here. Are you feeling okay?”

Gaara nods slowly, but his throat feels like it’s starting to close up. His pulse races, heart pounding against his ribs. His face feels hot and cold all at once, as if he rubbed it with menthol. 

“You’re almost done.” Lee rubs his arm, and Gaara closes his eyes to focus on the feeling. This proves to be a bad choice, because all of a sudden Gaara is acutely aware of the sloshing of his blood on the machine. He opens his eyes and finds himself fixated on the sight - the bag almost full, the liquid moving back and forth in slow waves. “Stop looking at that,” Lee prompts him, and positions his head so his face fills Gaara’s vision. “Hang in there, you’re almost finished. How about a song? By the time the song is over, you should be all done.”

Gaara gives a tight nod, not trusting his mouth to speak. 

Lee crosses his arms over his chest and makes a goofy grin, his tongue sticking out slightly from between his lips. “Miss Ma-ry Mack, Mack, Mack-” he begins to sing, doing the hand jive along with it. When it comes time to clap, he gestures for Gaara to hold up his free hand and lightly taps it. He has a terrible singing voice, really more of just a tuneless drone, but his childlike enthusiasm does make Gaara feel more at ease. 

After the final ‘July-ly-ly!’, Lee gives a little cheer, lacing his fingers with Gaara’s own and shaking his hand back and forth. Gaara feels a little bit like he’s in a preschool classroom, but in a good way. It’s oddly nice, to be doted on like this. 

“Great job!” he says, and Gaara finds his cheeks warming at the words. Lee’s praise makes him feel like he really _did_ do a great job, even though he did nothing but lie there sweatily and make eyes at the person exsanguinating him. 

Lee smoothly removes the needle - Gaara’s stomach gives a lurch as if he had come to an abrupt halt in traffic - and bandages Gaara’s arm with gentle hands. 

“All right!” he says, tamping down the edge of a smiley-face Band-Aid. “You’re all ready to go. Don’t forget to grab a snack and take fifteen minutes to rest on your way out!”

The moment Gaara gains his feet, all the blood rushes from his head. He sways, grabbing Lee’s arm in desperation. 

“Snacks?” says a far-away voice that sounds very much like Gaara’s own. 

Lee tilts his head, staring at him in confusion. 

“Snacks - have?” Gaara repeats insistently. He’s making perfect sense, he’s sure of it - he doesn’t understand why Lee doesn’t seem to grasp what he’s saying. “Snack where,” he demands, fingers digging into Lee’s beefy arm. Black spots start popping at the edge of his vision. His periphery darkens and narrows down to a pinprick. 

He’s dreaming - vividly, in technicolor and explosive noise - for what feels like hours. He remembers none of the details. 

And then, suddenly, he’s waking up to a white light overhead and a circle of faces that he doesn’t recognize. A dark-haired man with arms like tree trunks is fanning his face with a glossy pamphlet. 

“Hell-llo, hannnsome,” slurs a voice that sounds totally unlike Gaara’s own. The man’s cheeks turn a winsome shade of crimson. 

“Glad to see you’re awake,” remarks a broad-shouldered woman, raising one russet eyebrow with a smirk. 

“D’I hit m’head?” Gaara mumbles. 

“Oh, no,” the tall man pats his arm. His hand is broad and the warmth of it is comforting. “I caught you before you hit the floor.”

Gaara exhales noisily. “Ssstrong arms,” he hisses. 

“Lee,” the woman says archly, “why don’t you go get him some snacks and something to drink?”

Mortification hits Gaara like a Mack truck. He suddenly remembers where he is - the back of the blood van - and that _Lee_ is the name of the handsome phlebotomist who’s been helping him. 

“What kind of snacks do you like?” Lee asks, all in a rush, while Gaara’s still internally reeling and weighing the chances that he might be able to eviscerate himself with one of the blood-draw needles. “We’ve got cookies, chips, cupcakes…”

“Cookies?” Gaara squeaks, voice cracking. 

“Okay!” Lee retreats in a flash, the back of his neck bright red. 

As soon as he’s gone, a blonde woman’s face (and bosom) loom into view, her expression as severe as her voice when she barks out, “Have you had anything to eat today?”

“I had coffee,” Gaara offers.

“I said _eat_.”

“It had sugar in it, and milk.”

The woman rolls her eyes, forehead wrinkling in despair even under the roughly quarter inch of foundation she seems to be wearing. She levels Gaara with a glare that frightens him more than any needle or bag of blood ever could. 

“I didn’t … have time,” he mutters.

“No wonder you passed out,” she snaps. “Let me get your blood pressure.” 

She’s much rougher and more perfunctory in her application of the cuff than Lee had been, brow furrowed as she pumps the manual inflation bulb as if it had personally offended her, until it pinches the loose skin on Gaara’s arm. She releases the pressure valve like she’s beheading a particularly distasteful criminal and shucks the stethoscope from her ears. 

“Your BP is still pretty low,” she reports flatly. “I want you to sit here with your feet up - I’ll have Lee bring you some pillows to elevate them - and eat and drink some to get your sugar up. I’ll recheck you in half an hour.”

“Half an hour?” Gaara splutters. “I have class.” 

She gives him a snakelike stare that indicates she doesn’t care if he has an audience with the Dean himself. “I can’t send you back out into that heat until your vitals are stable.”

Just as Gaara’s about to object further, Lee comes skidding back into the room with a handful of cookies.

“I wasn’t sure which kind you liked,” he says, depositing the stack into Gaara’s lap, “so I got a little bit of everything!” He presses a cup of lemonade into Gaara’s hand. “Please take small sips!” 

The blonde woman snorts derisively. “Lee,” she says sharply, and Lee’s head whips around to look at her, “I need you to stay here and keep an eye on this one. Make sure he keeps his feet up and don’t let him out of your sight ‘til I come back to recheck him. Class or no class, if he sneaks out of here and faints again, I’m coming after your license.” 

“Yes ma’am!” Lee salutes. “Sakura,” he calls to the other phlebotomist, who’s hovering nearby with an expression of barely concealed mirth, “can you please take over my other draw?” 

“No problem,” she says, sing-song, and gives Gaara a knowing look that ends with a wink. 

“I really do have class,” Gaara mutters, as Lee gently lifts each of his feet to arrange them on a stack of pillows with gentle pats. 

“I’m sure you do, but trust me, you do not want to cross Tsunade. How about one of those cookies?”

Gaara takes a bite of the first cookie on the top of the stack, not even caring what it is. The taste of sugar floods his mouth, and he closes his eyes.

“Hey.” Lee pokes him in the shoulder. “Stay with me.” 

“Sorry,” Gaara mumbles, stray crumbs falling from his lips, “just tastes good.” 

“When was the last time you ate?” Lee asks.

Gaara has to think on it. 

“Last night, I think, uh … around dinner time?”

Lee’s mouth drops open, aghast.

“You skipped breakfast _and_ lunch?” 

“Well, I don’t normally eat breakfast.”

Lee’s expression transforms from one of shock to one of horror.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” he cries. “If you don’t start your day with protein and carbs you won’t have any fuel or energy for your daily activities, much less something as strenuous as giving blood!” 

“I’ll be sure to remember that for my next donation,” Gaara says drily. 

Lee frowns. “Oh, I’m so sorry…” He looks down at his hands, then back up at Gaara’s face, genuine regret coloring his features. “If you have an adverse reaction to the donation, we ask that you not return to donate again.”

Gaara’s shoulders slump with dejection. He’s not sure if the disappointment suddenly flooding him is due to his body’s refusal to cooperate with such a simple task or to the notion that it probably means he’ll never see Lee again. 

“Shit,” he says under his breath, “I even fucked that up, huh?” 

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Lee says gently. His hand is back on Gaara’s shoulder, heavy and stabilizing. “There’s no way to predict how your body will react to donation. Even perfectly healthy people have a hard time sometimes.” 

Gaara almost shrugs the hand off his shoulder - generally he wouldn’t allow anyone to touch him like this, much less a virtual stranger. But Lee’s thumb is idly rubbing at the divot where his clavicle meets the socket of his shoulder, and the motion is sending waves of calm through him. 

“Is there anything else I can do instead?” he asks. He feels a sudden intense need to make up for his personal failings. 

“You can volunteer!” Lee’s face brightens. “We always need more hands on deck to check folks in and hand out refreshments!” 

That sounds almost impossible to fuck up, Gaara thinks. 

“I could do that. When’s the next time you all are here?” 

Lee purses his lips. “I’m not sure, but I’ll write down our website for you - you can check the schedule and sign up to volunteer there. We’re normally on campus at least a few times a year.”

“That would be great,” Gaara says. “Thanks.” 

After a flurry of harried emails to his literature professor and a lengthy texted apology to the group-mates he was supposed to be presenting with that afternoon, on top of more cookies and cups of lemonade than he thought he could reasonably stomach, Gaara finds himself feeling much refreshed and practically back to normal. It certainly helps matters that Lee has stayed at his bedside the entire time, save brief forays to the refreshment area to bring more snacks and further plastic cups of artificially flavored beverages. It doesn’t hurt, either, that Lee’s hands keep straying to touch Gaara’s arm or rub his shoulder, and once, daringly, to ruffle his hair - a move that left both of them blushing uncontrollably, eyes darting away from one another to stare resolutely at the floor. 

At the thirty minute mark, Lee’s supervisor checks Gaara’s blood pressure again and declares him fit to go. She has him stand to make sure he can walk around a bit - Lee stands nearby with his arms outstretched, just in case his bulk is needed to catch him again - but Gaara is feeling plenty stable on his own two feet, and Lee’s services are unneeded (though the temptation to feign weakness, just so he can experience those arms around him again, while properly conscious to appreciate them, is certainly strong). 

“When you get home,” the nurse orders him, “I want you to drink two full glasses of water and eat something with iron - red meat, leafy greens, that kind of thing.” Apparently Temari’s accusations of anemia weren’t too far off the mark. “Lee is going to give you an information sheet so you know who to call if you start feeling sick again.”

Gaara nods his understanding, and Lee shepherds him to the back of the truck, his hand hovering over Gaara’s lower back. The gesture is unnecessary now that Gaara is walking on his own two feet, but he appreciates the thought. 

When he reaches the back door, Lee foists upon him a photocopied information sheet and insists he take another bottle of lemonade “just in case”.

“Oh!” Lee says, as Gaara’s hand approaches the door handle, “and here is the information about volunteering!” He presses a small, folded piece of paper into Gaara’s palm, then ducks around him to hold the door open for him. 

Once Gaara is on the bus, slowly sipping his cold lemonade and letting the breeze through the open window tousle his hair, he unfolds the piece of paper. On it is the blood donation website, but at the bottom is an unfamiliar phone number and a note in neat, blocky script: _Text me sometime,_ it reads, _we can get breakfast, my treat!_ The sentence is punctuated by a smiley face with exaggerated eyebrows. 

Gaara grins to himself, biting his lower lip. 

He taps the contact into his phone and saves it as _Lee <3 (blood guy)_ before he can lose the paper.


End file.
